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After finally getting rid of all that FunnyJunk mess, Matthew Inman’s Oatmeal has found itself right in the middle of yet another lawsuit, this time all over a name and some greeting cards. Yep, that’s right, cards.
Apparently the Oatmeal teamed up with Papyrus to sell greeting cards and other novelty items, which caught the eye of ‘Oatmeal Studios,’ a company that has been selling greeting cards for some 35 years. It’s just filed a trademark infringement suit against Inman for the use of Oatmeal relating to cards.
While the FunnyJunk stuff was, well, pretty absurd, this time Inman might be in trouble. Mind you, the suit doesn’t actually specify any damages, or anything like that, so perhaps it could be ended relatively amicably, but something in me fancies this turning into another FunnyJunk-style clash of epic proportions. That might bring about the demise of the Oatmeal we know and love, or at least its webshop, which apparently pretty much supports the comics financially. Hopefully we won’t have to break out the “Save Our Oatmeal” placards again. [Ars Technica]
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God we live in such a shit culture.
How fucking hard is it to email Inman saying “Hey, guys, just to let you know, we already have a company called Oatmeal, and we sell greeting’s cards, so please don’t do the same.”
No, fuck it, best course of action is to spend thousands on lawyers and potentially ruin someone’s life. Assholes.
Welcome to corporate America, let me introduce you to our legal team – bend over please.
Judges hate it when companies use the legal system as first notification of infringement, this may well cost them the case. You are ment to contact them first to inform them.
This is unfortunate – I hope they are able to settle it amicably.
But why are you suddenly referring to The Oatmeal as just ‘Oatmeal’? Based on the context of the article, this seems a bit misleading.
Call the cards “The Oatmeal, By Papyrus”. problem solved.
No, that would probably still be too similar to the copyright. I think The Oatmeal will probably have to stop selling cards, or create an alternative brand to sell under. Nothing major. They’re probably just going through court to formalise it to ensure there’s a precedent set, so next time someone infringes on their copyright they will be aware that Oatmeal Cards are prepared to protect it.
Precedent my arse, they’ve basically noticed that they are no longer ranked first on google search results.
If it’s clear that the cards are a collection published by another company, and The Oatmeal can cite prior work under that moniker (i.e. the entire website) then they would have legitimate use of it for those purposes. If they tried their hand at publishing themselves it’d be different, but as the publishing company is clearly defined in the name, and a markedly separate firm, it’d be hard to argue they’re indistinct.
Plus what soulforge said, they’re just pissy about not being the top search result. And really, really stupid for suing a guy recently plastered all over the internet for the fact that the last person who tried to sue him got the shit kicked out of him by the fanbase at large. And raised lots of money for cancer! and bears!
I would argue that it would still be far too similar to the original copyright, but this is why we have courts to decide.
The last lawsuit was entirely frivolous, this one is completely legitimate. If they’re no longer number one in Google for their own copyright in their own industry then they have every right to bring a legal challenge.
For all we know they’ve already tried writing to Inman and he’s actually a massive bastard and laughed in their face, drunk on the power the last lawsuit gave him.
Unlikely, but possible.